Understanding religious extremism in Pakistan

Believe it or not, yesterday, more than a quarter century after I was brought onto this planet in a space shuttle (or so my Mom tells me) to save it (#MessiahComplex), I finally set foot in the United States for the first time. I am told that it’s a huge country – the flight path screen and the sheer amount of time it took to make it here, seemed to confirm this. But so far what I have seen between Campus Drive East and the Main Quad, is very pretty, and makes me very happy – I can’t help but grin from ear to ear when I pass by that fountain just down the road from Schwab.

Now, I have been urged by loved ones to use my time in the United States, to both obtain a richer understanding of this country (I maintain, in my somewhat signature arrogant style, that I already understand it a lot – I have watched plenty of Family Guy and American Dad), and spread much required understanding of Pakistan. Decent idea!

I start with a very interesting and important policy-ish dilemma that we face in Pakistan – if we educate and urbanize the population, which is the natural next stage of our development, where almost certainly no other path exists, other than industrialization on a massive scale (large scale education and urbanization being key ingredients), we, to a very large extent, risk fueling an Islamic Reformation Movement, the core of which is “opposed to American interests” (at least humor me by thinking in the direction of the Middle-East, and not blaming everything on more complex and local factors) and the extreme fringe of which can use modern technology to turn violent, and make their presence felt, no matter how small it actually is in terms of power, both numbers and proportions – and not to mention how morally convoluted and practically short-sighted the strategy of this group is.

The roots of this reformation movement lie in the Indian Sub-Continent of the 1800s. Sunni Muslims, which today make up roughly 70% of the Muslim population of the Indian Sub-Continent, split into two schools (literally). The Deobandis on the right side of the political ring, came out of Deoband in modern day India, and are a puritan reformist movement – think of the Great Schism in 16^th Century Europe. The Barelvis, on the left, were a reaction to the Deobandis, and sought to preserve the status quo – think of the Catholic Church. Recent numbers, including votes for the Deobandi Islamist Political Parties, Islamic Banking Penetration, and just the numbers which my gut reports regularly to my brain, seem to suggest that today roughly 20% of the 70% of Sunni Muslims are Deobandi, and roughly 50% of the 70% are Barelvi. The field is divided – there is a massive rift or schism. The most fundamental question is how to view or even interpret (especially if you hold very strong faith and will not listen to secular arguments) religion, in the context of its role within the state.

Understanding the status quo and those who seek to preserve it – The Barelvis

It’s been almost 1,300 years since Islam first arrived in the Indian Sub-Continent. Today only 30% of the population is Muslim, even though Muslim rulers have controlled much of the centralized state for much of this period. What this tells me is that while people have clearly tried, spreading Islam has been difficult – the traditional religions of the Sub-Continent, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism had to be reconciled with the radical views of this new religion. What emerged from this process was a hodge-podge of beliefs, and rituals, at the core of which is a strong appreciation for secularism and pluralism – love, peace and humanity.

There are hundreds of Sufi Saints in Pakistan today. These Saints were primarily missionaries, and almost all of them claim to be descendants of the Prophet Mohammed. After they died, cults formed around them and their exploits – so they are revered, and even worshipped. Their Shrines are quite a sight, one reason being their striking resemblance to the shrines of other religions in the area – instead of idols and deities, you will have a grave covered with colorful cloths and worshippers lined up around it. Instead of Bhajjans (traditional Hindu religious songs) you will have a drum beating (dhammal) and lots of intoxicants, the primary one being Bhang or Cannabis. I urge any potential visitors to Pakistan to visit around the time of these Festivals, which celebrate the Death Anniversary of any one of these Saints. Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, in Interior Sindh, is the most popular one, although a little bit inaccessible. Bulleh Shah, in Kasur near Lahore is another very popular one, and a quite a bit more easily accessible.

Now, these Saints preached what any hippy (or good person) preaches – love, peace and humanity. Some of these Saints, for example, Bulleh Shah and Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, earned their reputation through their poetry, which is very powerful, and forms the much of bedrock of the very rich and sophisticated spiritual and metaphysical inclinations of the populace to this day.

But the interesting twist here is that these Saints accumulated a lot of wealth, through their power and prestige, and their roles were passed down and on to their descendants. To this day, the people of Pakistan revere and visit these “modern day” Hereditary Saints or Pirs. Even my parents, who are highly educated and part of the upper middle class, have visited some of these folks – they appear just like ordinary mortals, but the services they provide can appear to be extra-ordinary to the less than skeptical eye, ranging from praying on your behalf (often for very sick or otherwise troubled persons, which there is never any shortage of), to fortune telling.

If my parents have engaged and indulged in such superstition, who can really blame a poor uneducated rural farmer? These Saints have a massive strangle-hold over the rural population, and use this power through the modern democratic process, to control the many arms of the State. Today, almost 50% of the seats in Parliament are held by these Hereditary Saints, and it is difficult to unseat them through the electoral process, because there is such a strong cult around each of them.

Traditionally, these Hereditary Saints have also held a monopoly over education, quite openly and staunchly denying it to their constituents (or effectively subjects). There are poetic verses which support this – one of the most beautiful and famous of these verses was authored by Bulleh Shah, which I (and many others) interpret to be a tongue-in-cheek reinforcement of this value system (although holding much deeper and broader meaning). The traditional method of home schooling, with a Master (or older Saint) and an under-study, lingered on in a very prestigious and exclusive fashion for a long time until the advent of the modern private school, from where many of these Hereditary Saints today graduate, in addition to completing their traditional education. This strong-hold on education, and strong culturally embedded impulse against education, particularly for the lower classes, is why improving primary enrollment in Pakistan, and making the public school system work has been such a challenge. As one expert on this topic once stated – “Illiteracy in Pakistan is not a problem that the State is facing or dealing with; it is actually the policy of the State”. Cynicism, you ask? May be to some extent, but also quite rich and telling.

With no education, there was traditionally no middle class in the rural areas. Either wage laborers, sometimes bonded (essentially slave-like) generation after generation to landlords (or essentially their slave owners) through the accumulation of massive amounts of family debt, or very large and powerful landholders, who (essentially) owned (or controlled) these subjects and were also their spiritual (and God-like) leaders as Hereditary Saints. These powerful families, who today control the state (through 50% of the seats in Parliament), in the best case display complete apathy towards performing their responsibilities as functionaries of the state, since their power is very unlikely to be challenged, and in worse cases are incompetent or worse still engage in corruption. The system holds little structural room for merit or accountability.

But, these Hereditary Saints do after-all spread the message of love, peace and humanity – and so they form the deepest rooted barrier against religious extremism in the country. Indeed, many external Actors (think in the direction of America) have been accused of perpetuating these Hereditary Saints’ hold on power – for example, by brokering the deal between Benazir Bhutto and Musharraf in 2007. And so, the other large and emerging powerful group, the Deobandis, which already views the Barelvis with particular disdain, is quite frustrated with these external actors. Hard to balance local complexities in alien political systems, especially without fully understanding them – isn’t it? Doesn’t it make China’s attitude of not meddling anywhere seem like such a good idea? How can a powerful actor hold itself back though? Wouldn’t the likes of Billary Clinton be out of a job? All interesting questions, in my view.

Understanding the reformists and the momentum behind their movement – The Deobandis

When the Sub-Continent became British controlled in the 1800s, the British sought to build structures to support the modern centralized nation state, primarily to support their massive infrastructure projects such as the roads, railways, and the new modern irrigation systems opening up vast canal colonies for agriculture (where my forefathers resettled in what is today Pakistani Punjab, from their previous home in what is today Indian Punjab). They educated a new generation of high potential Indians, within which the Muslims were well represented, because of their strong legacy as previous rulers of India (even though they later persecuted them after the 1857 rebellion).

My forefathers also went through this process, which is why I am a real boy sitting in Palo Alto today, and not some Japanese Spitz canine, whose ancestors did not bother to lay a good foundation for their progeny. My Great Grand Father was the village administrator. He maintained the land records and collected taxes, a position which has been passed down through the family to the eldest son, and is today formally held by my father (even though his father’s first cousin executes this responsibility on the ground today, being the closest member of the family still living in the village). My Grand Father joined the professional civil service, and became part of a new class of educated and progressive people – also known as the (upper) “middle-class”. He also sported an Islamic beard towards the end of his life.

With education came empowerment, and people began to question, and even cringe at the (Barelvi) status quo. They turned against everything associated with it – the deity like Saint worship, the intoxication in the religious festivals, etc. In order to make this movement take ideological root, they had to turn towards a very strict and puritan version of Islam. The Wahabis in the not so distant Najd, what is part of modern day Saudi Arabia, provided ample ideas and inspiration.

The Deobandis started out small, but are today both sizable and fast growing. Urbanization and education have provided momentum to their growth, as people arriving to the cities lose touch with their traditional roots and seek new ways to find meaning, purpose and engage themselves ideologically. This group as a whole is aligned in their core beliefs – they seek a radically different political and social system, grounded and guided by Islam, which delivers the basics of justice and economic development – and in more fanciful and ambitious cases, restores the pan-Islamic caliphate, which existed only for a very few number of years after the prophet’s death (because non-religious political complexities, which these folks fail to properly acknowledge and understand, have made such a state impossible). Thus, this group could be accused of being largely “opposed to American interests” (again, please humor me by thinking in the direction of the Middle East – some of the causes are local but it’s hard to argue that there isn’t a broader external theme of justice, or lack thereof). But while these groups agree on their core beliefs, they are in fact very heterogeneous in their strategies and their road-maps to achieving their ends. This is where things become complicated.

On the nice-ish one end are the progressives – these are highly educated Deobandi Muslims, who belong solidly to the middle-class. They are represented by a small but highly organized political party called the Jamaat-e-Islami. When this party appears on television, it almost always sends a woman spokesperson, fully covered from head to toe, expect for the eyes, to represent it. This, it claims very openly and honestly, is in order to promote gender equality – in fact, their strategy is brilliant, and much of their support comes from middle-class women who feel empowered by their approach and agenda. They are a non-violent bunch, and preach engagement through mainstream democratic channels. They have a strong student arm which is particularly well organized, and recruits from the top public universities of the country. One sub-segment within these progressives is the Tableeghi Jammat, or literally the “Missionary Movement”. They go door to door, and preach a lot – in fact I remember them showing up outside my house back in 2003. They couldn’t convince me to come with them to the mosque, but they did try very hard and were very respectful in their approach.

At the end of the day, they employ reason and argument – and while they do so to preach adherence towards some very strict rules (such as covering everything except for your eyes if you’re a lady), they also believe to a large extent in individual rights and freedoms, and strongly preach non-violence. They run quite a few of the madrassas in Pakistan, commonly misunderstood and homogenously viewed as hotbeds of hatred. If you take strong (and possibly unjust) measures against them, some of them will very well start to become angry and move towards the other more extreme fringe of the spectrum – why does this surprise anyone?

Somewhere in the middle of this spectrum or perhaps not even within this spectrum, but claiming to be part of it, are the cronies – they also advocate non-violence and engagement through the political system. My strong personal sense is that these folks are a little less educated and well-off than the progressives, and are composed of the lowest rungs of the urban service class – it is literally truck driver mullah turned political leader resonating with fellow truck driver voter and mosque attendee of the same ethnicity. My somewhat strong judgment and conclusion is that they are largely using religion as a farce to extract patronage from the state. They are represented primarily by the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, more specifically the party led by Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman (abbreviated by JUI-F). JUI-F on the one hand opposes US drone strikes in the Pakistani tribal areas, but on the other hand has been part of every coalition government which has allowed these drone strikes to take place – both the Musharraf and the existing Zardari administrations. Fazl-ur-Rehman has been targeted by suicide bombers, which lends weight to his peaceful credentials. But Fazl-ur-Rehman, according to the Wikileaks dossiers, has also asked the American Ambassador at the time to support him in becoming Prime Minister (presumably by exerting American influence on the other power actors in the country).

In other words these cronies are opportunistic hypocrites, who have abused religious ideology and the continuity of the apathy, incompetence and corruption within the Barelvi-dominated political system, to extract a few gains here and there. The population has become highly vary of them, and the latest polls in some of their strongest areas of traditional support, such as the Pashtun Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the mega-city of Karachi, show that their popularity is now negligible.

And on the very extreme other end you have none other than, what I will call – the extremists. They form a small fringe of this overall spectrum, but their actions are such, that they get a disproportionate amount of attention. I do not understand their strategy, and neither do the progressives and the cronies, even though they do sympathize with their core ends – I just do not see a path through which they can use this strategy to achieve their ultimate goals.

Some of what they do can be explained by delusion – either the short-term incentives of paradise, virgins and the like, or some long-term can-do attitude which makes them believe that anarchy is on the pathway to power and a strong Islamic State. Socio-economic underdevelopment and injustice creates anger, a fertile environment for these delusions to take hold. But delusions are delusions – some of the most destructive ones often exist in the best of environments. We all have folks in our societies, who at least from our own perspectives are deluded – sometimes they believe in some ancient fairy tale which justifies their strong positions held in almost unquestionable place by very sophisticated modern approaches (e.g. heavy and very effective lobbying, etc.). Many others view these same positions and methods as incorrect and unjust.  It is important at least to understand where everyone is coming from, and the sad truth is that some groups are so powerless that all they can use are crude means, which have become wide spread and easy to deploy due to modern technology.

What I try to explain to everyone (particularly those in the direction of America) is that traditional 19^th and 20^th century power structures (largely built around strong Nation States – think International Relations) have to a large extent broken down in today’s world, with so many ideologies, so many non-state actors and so much technology which both spreads ideas fast and makes violence easy to carry out. One can no longer undertake any actions or support old positions which cannot be justified under basic and universal principles of justice, fair-play and humanity. The band within which we can exercise our traditional power, and hold our societies (nuclear armed one’s even) from becoming anarchic, has become so small, that if we do not realize this soon enough, we might all be in a lot of trouble.

The policy-ish dilemma

There is strong evidence that the lines between the progressives, cronies and extremists are sometimes crossed – even intuitively one can imagine that it requires a lot of wisdom and a very strong temperament to hold yourself back from constantly changing your personal view of what the overall strategy should be.

Given that the situation lends itself to easy crossing, the question is as follows – if you take a development pathway as a country (through industrialization and by implication education and urbanization), which will almost certainly increase the momentum behind this movement, how do you control it? Do you go down the Turkish route and try to embed within the educational system and the national ideological reinforcement process, a requirement to brainwash the population towards secularism? Will a fringe always be out of line, perhaps quite simply, just by rebelling for the sake of rebelling, and more complexly through all the crazy things in the world which cannot be solved all at once, and many of which will never be solved? And does this Turkish approach become a non-starter for most Pakistanis who at the end of the day are somewhat conservative and would have to endorse such a plan to reform themselves through the ballot box?

Or do you make an honest but ideologically religion-agnostic attempt to cook the recipe of strong economic development, and wait for the situation to play out, such as what is currently happening in Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood (which the US seems to be very afraid of)?

Indeed much of the momentum behind this movement lies in the failure of the state and the justice system. There’s very simple day-to-day tactical justice delivered through courts; there’s more structural social justice delivered through policy and the arms of the state; and there’s even justice in the context of major international conflicts delivered through sovereign states holding strong universally principled positions. The population will obviously demand these things, as it becomes empowered both through education and the right to exercise their vote. So delivering on these basics, while making many of us uncomfortable, is almost certainly the solution to this problem.

The one political party which explicitly makes these promises, and has the will, and the political and intellectual resources to deliver on them is the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) led by Imran Khan. Unfortunately, Imran Khan makes the US as nervous as the Muslim Brotherhood does in Egypt, due to his strong position against US drone strikes in the Pakistani tribal areas, and his background as a born-again Deobandi-ish Muslim (even though he was a bit of a Playboy in his earlier years).

What is very interesting is that this is a very complex problem, especially in the global context and any sort of complexity will create massive confusion in Washington – everyone wants simplistic solutions like bombing a less than trivial percentage of the population out of existence, or shutting down all the madrassas which provide more than just a trivial share of the literacy in the country

It’s complex but nobody who makes an effort to understand the world wants an unstable and underdeveloped Pakistan anymore – a good argument is that it is home to 180 million people or 3% of the world’s humanity which deserves its fair share of justice, dignity and self-esteem. The argument which often resonates though (grounded in very outdated 19^th and 20^th century nation state politics) is that it is nuclear armed and an indirect threat to certain national interests. Whatever the argument, the need for Americans to really understand Pakistan is extremely important – I hope this post has at least been somewhat useful.